The Beer and Beets Job
by Petunia846
Summary: Two old friends run into each other and spend some time catching up. Just some random fun thanks to some random prompts.


_This was written for a challenge at Caperland over on LiveJournal (super fun, you should join if you enjoy Burn Notice, Leverage, and/or White Collar). I could choose between the two prompts ("sell beets in a roadside stand" and "invest in a microbrewery, complete with homemade brews made by one of them") but I ended up liking both of them so I combined it. I'm not usually a crossover kind of girl, but this just jumped out at me as clearly a story for Sam and Eliot. It's completely random, but hopefully at least a little bit amusing to you all._

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Sam cruised down the Michigan back roads in a rented convertible, happily letting the breeze muss up his hair. It had been years since he'd been to his hometown, but so far it seemed like not much had changed. In a truly miraculous feat, Fiona had finally convinced Michael to take a vacation. They'd headed down to the Keys and Sam had decided it would be a good opportunity for him to get away from it all too.

He was on his way back to town when he spotted a roadside farm stand up ahead. He slammed on the brakes as he passed the stand, which was really just a beat-up pick-up truck piled high with vegetables. A hand-painted sign on the side read, "Organic Local Beets," but it wasn't the produce that caught Sam's eye. It was the man in a folding camping chair sitting next to the truck reading a magazine. If he didn't know any better, Sam could have sworn…

He pulled off onto the side of the road, creating a cloud of gray gravel dust, and hopped out of the car.

"Eliot? Eliot Spencer?" he called to the man who was watching him intently.

The man stood slowly and squinted in his direction. The sun setting behind Sam obscured his face.

"Who's askin'?"

'Yeah,' Sam thought to himself. 'That's Spencer.' He would recognize that angry defensiveness anywhere on the planet. He jogged a little bit to close the gap between them faster. The man, Eliot, casually shifted his stance, edging slightly closer to the folding chair, but Sam knew it was not really a casual gesture. He slowed as he approached and held up his hands in mock surrender, hoping to avoid having his face busted up by the chair or Eliot's fists.

"Whoa there, cowboy. It's Sam, Sam Axe."

Eliot looked him up and down strategically. "Sam Axe," he mumbled, his voice was flat. "Sam Axe," he repeated, giving the name a good once-over. Finally a grin spread across his face and Sam let out the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. "Sam Axe! What are the odds?" Eliot's shoulders relaxed and he reached out to clasp Sam's hand enthusiastically, pulling him in for a quick, manly pat on the back. "What're you doin' out here, man?"

Sam couldn't keep the wide grin off his face. He'd helped train Eliot years ago when the young man was just starting out with the SEALs. While he hadn't lasted long in the service for various reasons, Eliot had been one of the best men Sam had ever worked with.

"Just up here for the week visiting some family. What are you doing?" He motioned to the truck and Eliot's shoulder-length hair. "You get out of the service just to join some kind of hippie farm commune?"

"Nah, nah," Eliot shrugged and glanced over his shoulders at the truck full of beets. "I've been workin'…keepin' busy. We're just taking a bit of a break right now."

"We?" Sam's eyebrow crept up. "You finally settle down?"

Eliot threw back his head and laughed. "Aw, now you know me better than that, man. No, I've been working with a team for a while now. Good people. Drive me crazy, but they're good people." He paused and shook his head thinking about them. "How 'bout you? You're not still in the service are you?"

It was Sam's turn to laugh. "No, no. I'm, um…retired. Live down in Miami now."

"Miami? Wha'do you do, spend your days drinking beer on the beach and watching the bikinis walk by?"

"Watching?" Sam raised both eyebrows.

"Right, right. I know," Eliot jokingly apologized.

"No," Sam started, "I keep busy. Got a little team of my own down there actually. Drive me crazy too."

"Hell," Eliot exclaimed. "Sounds like some things never change."

Sam nodded in amusement. "Seriously though, what's with the beets?"

Eliot shrugged. "Beets are big up here," he explained. "Plus, it's the only fruit or vegetable I knew I could grow but I wouldn't be tempted to eat myself."

"Fair enough," Sam grinned. "How's business?" Eliot motioned to the deserted road and Sam laughed. "So business wouldn't take a big hit if you packed up early and went into town for some beers?"

"No, no, I don't think so." Eliot answered. "I'm not in it for the money anyway," he grinned.

"I don't even want to know," Sam shook his head.

They packed up Eliot's truck and decided on a bar the next town over. They were six rounds in when they ran out of microbrew options…a fate almost worse than death for both men.

"Aw, honey, y'all don't have anything else?" Eliot asked the pretty waitress. "We've had a couple o'each…time for something new."

She looked at him with a puzzled expression, unable to understand his southern accent, which tended to get thicker the more beers he put away.

"Um, sweetheart," Sam tried to interpret for her. "What my friend here wants to know is whether you have any other kinds of beer. We're sort of aficionados."

"Aficiona…what?" Her face scrunched up in confusion.

Eliot laid his head on the table.

"Never mind," Sam told her. "Just bring us another round of this one." He held up one of the bottles for her to catch the name on the label.

"You grew up here?" Eliot asked Sam after she walked away. "This is disgraceful. How can you call yourself a bar when you've only got three kinds of beer?"

Sam nodded intently. "Why do you think I left to join the Navy?"

Eliot chuckled. As miserable as the beer situation was, it had been a long time since he'd laughed this much in one evening. Suddenly he had an idea. "Microbrewery!" he clapped Sam on the shoulder.

"Say what now?" The old friends had done a lot of catching up that day, but Sam was going to need some elaboration on that one.

"We should start our own microbrewery, man," he grinned across the table.

Sam whistled under his breath. "Now that's an idea." He scratched his head. "But how would that work? You've got your thing up in Boston…I've got my thing down in Miami…"

"Good point," Eliot sighed. "Well maybe we could just invest in one. Come up with our own recipe and then find a good place to get it produced."

"Says the man who's clearly not living off a government pension," Sam said pointedly

They exchanged a knowing glance.

"So you guys don't…" Eliot's voice trailed off.

Sam shifted in his seat. "Not exactly. Usually just expenses." He paused. "What do you guys do again?" He tried to keep the slight suspicion out of his voice. Eliot had always been a man with morals and convictions, but Sam knew what the world could do to a good man.

Eliot wasn't quite sure how to put it, especially not without incriminating his whole team. "We, uh, we help people."

Sam chuckled at the familiarity of that statement. "Well we've got that in common still I guess."

The waitress returned again and plunked a fresh beer down in front of each man. They spent a few moments sipping in silence.

Finally Sam glanced over at Eliot again. "So how much longer is your little team break here?"

"Dunno," Eliot shrugged. "That's kind of up to the judge."

Sam knew better than to ask for more details than that. "Well," he started, "ever been to Miami?"

"Yeah, actually. Did a job there once…didn't get a chance to do a lot of sight seeing if you know what I mean…"

Sam nodded knowingly. "Well, if you've got the time, wanna go down there with me and start tinkering with a recipe?"

Eliot thought about it for a moment. When he'd set up his truck full of beets on the side of the road this morning, he'd never imagined that the day might end with an invitation to Miami from an old friend, but life was funny that way sometimes.

"You know what, man? Let's do it." He raised his beer bottle and Sam did the same, clinking the necks together for the toast.

"To beer and beets," Sam toasted.

Eliot smiled. "To old friends."


End file.
